以下为逐句中英对照翻译（中文保留原文格式，英文使用半角标点）：
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Municipal authorities have recognized the value of “dense sensor networks,” which enable “monitoring of diverse conditions across systems or regions.”
Automatic license plate recognition technology can be used to track vehicles across cities and impose fines for traffic violations.
Santander, Spain, has deployed 12,000 sensors throughout its urban area to measure “noise, temperature, ambient light levels, carbon monoxide concentrations, as well as the location and availability of parking spaces.”
During operations in Afghanistan, the U.S. military left behind 1,500 “unattended ground sensors” to monitor population movements between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab are developing low-cost sensors that can be mounted atop streetlights, enabling “near real-time, house-by-house” measurement of noise and pollution.
Other notable technologies remain in the planning phase, such as PlanIT Valley east of Porto, Portugal.
This city uses an “Urban Operating System,” collecting data via over 100 million embedded sensors and feeding it to applications to monitor and control the urban system.
From macro to micro, “Smart Dust” technology consists of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) smaller than 2mm×2mm, equipped with miniature sensors capable of collecting diverse data.
A pilot study called “Underworlds” seeks to harness “data flushed down toilets.”
The study envisions small robots traversing sewers to collect samples, analyzing measurements of people’s food intake, infectious diseases, and gut health.
Sensors are also expanding into sensory domains previously exclusive to biological organisms.
For example, a company is developing mobile chemical sensors that can “smell” and “taste” (one hopes the aforementioned sewer robots lack this capability).
The utility? Your smartphone could test your blood alcohol level, blood sugar, and whether you have bad breath, requiring about 2,000 sensors to detect aromas and flavors—far exceeding the 400 sensors in the human nose.
MIT scientists recently engineered spinach—embedded with nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes—to detect nitroaromatic compounds in surrounding soil and transmit results in real time to a smartphone.
The outcome? It became “bomb-detecting spinach.” (Finally, a use for spinach.)
In machine vision, AI systems can increasingly pinpoint the most significant parts of an image and generate accurate captions for what they “see” (e.g., “People are shopping at an outdoor market”).
Computer facial recognition is now highly advanced and routinely used for border security checks in Europe and Australia.
The use of facial recognition isn’t always so noble; it’s also employed in toilet paper dispensers in Beijing’s Temple of Heaven Park restrooms to ensure no one takes excessive paper.
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